The Trial
by Ballerina Terminator
Summary: Clint Barton was the first person to believe in giving Natasha Romanoff another chance in life, but he was not alone for long.
1. Prologue: The Hearing

**Hello again, dear readers! This is my second installment for the Avengers, and it is the companion piece to my first story, "The Ledger." I do recommend reading that story first, although I did try to write this in a way that it could stand alone. I do have several other short stories for this series in the works, some one-shots like my first one and some multi-chapter, as is this one. There may be a long-chaptered epic in the future (much like my Inception stories), but I really need to try to keep myself to a maximum of five writing projects at a time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them all as much as I've enjoyed writing them.**

Prologue – The Hearing

When Coulson and Director Fury saw Agent Clint "Hawkeye" Barton walk into the SHIELD base closely followed by the target he had been sent to neutralize, Coulson was almost certain he could hear a blood vessel burst in his boss's brain. Fury didn't say anything. He just pointed to Barton and pointed to his office before turning on his heel and strode off.

When Barton disappeared into the office after the clearly livid Director of SHIELD, Coulson gestured to a seat in the sparse reception area, and Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff sat with a quiet "thank you."

She sat on the edge of the chair staring fixedly at the hands that she had clasped tightly in her lap, but occasionally her eyes would flicker to potential exits, an action that Coulson was certain was involuntary. She couldn't have stopped herself from noting her escape routes any more than she could have stopped her heart from beating. She put him in mind of a wild animal cornered, her body tensed for a fight or flight response, and, for some reason, Coulson was under the impression that, if it suddenly came to it, flight would be her first choice - not the assumption he would have made prior to this current moment.

"He's going to regret bringing me back, isn't he?" she said, breaking into his train of thought. "He's going to get into so much trouble that he's going to wish that he had just shot me when he had the chance." She sounded rueful, like she was just coming to appreciate how obviously foolish this plan was now that it was too late.

"We'll see," he said noncommittally, his passive smile remaining fixed. This statement was punctuated with the sound of Fury shouting behind the closed door, which dampened the sound enough to make the exact words unclear but their feeling was more than apparent.

Natasha gave him a look that managed to convey her complete disbelief that this could possibly end well for her, and any attempt to try to convince her otherwise would be taken as an insult to her intelligence. Coulson's expression never wavered.

Fifteen minutes later, the door to the director's office slammed open, and Director Fury strode into the reception area like the wrath of the gods, followed by Barton who was wearing an expression that Coulson recognized as a combination of relief and satisfaction.

"You," Fury snapped at Romanoff, "are here entirely on my forbearance. Barton is your sponsor and your supervisor. You will stick to him as though your life depends on it. Agent Coulson here is your handler. You will do everything that he tells you even if he tells you to do his laundry and clean his toilet. You are not even on probation until I decide you are allowed to begin probation. You are so low on the ladder that we are adding a new rung to the bottom of the ladder just for you. Let's be clear; if I have any reason to end you, I will, in a heartbeat, and just so you know, my having a bad day is more than enough reason."


	2. Chapter 1: Opening Arguments & Evidence

**Dearest Readers,**

** My name is Ballerina Terminator, and I have an addiction. It has been five days since I got my last review. Not a day goes by that I don't want to get the high that I feel discovering that I have received a review for one of my stories. I have done things that I am ashamed of in my desire for reviews, like staying up all night to finish a chapter, procrastinating on homework or studying, or even posting without carefully proof-reading for typos. Once, I even posted a chapter missing an entire paragraph, and, to my everlasting shame, I never fixed it because I was so anxious to get the next chapter up. Reviews were like my crack, and I needed my fix.**

** Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to try to kick this addiction. Hell, I don't even want to try. They say the first step is admitting that you have a problem, but this can't hurt me, right? RIGHT? Come on, guys, give Mama her reviews, and I promise that I will continue to provide the prose that you so desperately crave and that I will do my utmost to make sure the product that I'm offering is of the highest quality that I can manage. Ours is a co-dependent relationship where I provide you with the escape that you want while you give me the feedback that I covet! Remember, if anyone tells you that ours is an unhealthy relationship, they are just jealous and don't want us to be happy together! **

** Anywayyy….. I hope you enjoy the chapter!**

**All my love,**

**BT**

Chapter 1: Opening Arguments and Evidence

It was a month after Natasha Romanoff's arrival at the SHIELD HQ when Coulson walked into Fury's office and closed the door.

"Agent Coulson, what can I do for you?" Fury asked, nodding to one of the chairs that stood in front of his desk.

"Boss, I need a decision on Romanoff," Coulson said, approaching the desk.

"Is this really high priority right now?" Fury asked with a tone of warning that Phil ignored.

"Yes, sir, I think it is," he said, taking his seat. "This state of limbo that she is in cannot last forever, and I think it is past time. We are just wasting her skills if we never use them, and, until she is activated, Barton is also out of the game."

"What makes you think that accepting her into SHIELD is going to be my decision?"

"Because that is going to be my recommendation. She is a fantastic asset, and she has worked very hard to provide us with everything that she could to prove her willing. We have gotten more information on her controllers in the first two days she was here than we have managed to dredge up in the last half-decade. Names, dates, locations, beneficiaries… there is not much more that she could do without field work."

"Yes, I've seen your report. I want to know about what you didn't put in the official report. What are your personal thoughts on Miss Romanoff's professed desire to 'reform'? Do you honestly think that woman could actually be trying to turn over a new leaf?" Coulson considered the question carefully before responding.

"I believe that she no longer wants to be the soulless killer that someone tried to make her."

"And who was she before that?"

"Just an eleven-year-old kid taken from her parents," Coulson said simply.

"And who were they?" Fury asked, obviously interested. SHIELD had frustratingly little about the woman before she became a notorious assassin. "Does she know where they are now?"

"She says that they are dead."

"Anything else?"

Coulson shifted in his seat slightly, which for anyone else would have been an uncomfortable squirm. "After some pressing by Agent Barton, she added that her father was a teacher and her mother worked with computers. Even this information has given us much more to go on than when we first tried to run a background check."

There was a pregnant pause.

"She is a little less than forthcoming about her childhood," Coulson admitted. "She says that she has a hard time remembering, which I think is true, but not in the way that she makes it sound. She also claims to not remember anything from the two or three years following what she refers to as 'recruitment'. I suspect that she was not the one to coin that particular word to describe child-abduction," Coulson added dryly.

"And you think that she remembers more than she's saying?" Fury guessed.

"I think that she wishes she didn't," Coulson said with a bit of a shrug. "I think that she is trying very hard to not remember."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because of the information on the Program that we got from Col. Markovich when he defected and how she goes into a cold sweat whenever she's around the white coats."

"Oh, so our cold-hearted killer doesn't like visiting the doctor?" Fury asked with mild amusement.

"Or visiting the dentist. She tried to talk the dentist into filling a cavity without a Novocaine injection because she didn't like anything that dampened her senses. Apparently, she was very persuasive. He said that she had him thinking about it for a minute."

"And how is she doing with the shrinks? What do they think about her?

"Mixed results. To say that she is resistant to opening up about her feelings to a complete stranger might qualify as the understatement of the year, but Dr. Nabendu thinks that she has more common with the eleven-year-old abductee than the soulless killer that they tried to make her. The good doctor also had some very interesting things to say about mental programming and its results, but I imagine that you also have gone over her reports on Romanoff."

Fury nodded.

"Then you would also be aware that she is starting to show signs of clinical depression, which is not surprising considering the mental strain that she is under, waiting for you to decide whether or not to put a bullet in her brain. So, you will understand why I'm asking you to make that decision before she decides to make it for you," Coulson's tone was shockingly close to a challenge.

Fury gave him a Look, but Coulson met it with his own impassive gaze.

"As her handler, I am responsible for monitoring both her physical and mental health, and I'm going to take that seriously, despite her unorthodox arrival to this organization."

Fury nodded. "Of course," he said in a tone that was almost consolatory, "I would expect no less from you. However, that still leaves us with the question of what to do with her. The fact remains that I am simply not comfortable letting her loose in SHIELD without knowing what I'm unleashing. She very well may be just a troubled girl who is just barely above drinking age, but she still knows ten ways to kill a man using only her thumb and forefinger."

"Even with probationary status, she'll still be under Barton's direct command," Coulson pointed out.

"Yes, and I want to be sure that he understands what he is dealing with as well."

Coulson was silent for a moment, carefully contemplating the situation before he finally spoke again. "I will need to consult with Dr. Nabendu on this, but I think that I can make arrangements."


	3. Chapter 2: Closing Arguments & Verdict

**Hello again, my treasured readers!**

** There are just a few things that I want to clarify before we jump into the story, and they are as follows:**

**1. I am writing my stories as strictly movie-verse. While I will happily and openly take elements that I like from the comic universe, I am in no way sticking to any of the comic book versions of these characters or their backgrounds. As much as I enjoy the comics, trying to comb though the different universes and ret-cons would just make me crazy and ruin the fun that I'm having with my writing, so my only hard and fast rule for the characters is movie-verse canon.**

**2. For this chapter, I'm about to seriously play fast and loose with psychology and psychiatry, so please, enjoy it for the purely fanciful fiction that it is and don't think about it too hard. Remember to set your brain to movie-logic mode, and I promise to avoid overtaxing your suspension of disbelief.**

**So, I hope that you will appreciate this next part of the story, and I'd like to give a huge thank you to all who reviewed. Constructive feedback is immensely encouraged, and I very much do try to take my readers' thoughts and opinions into consideration when working on current and future projects. One of my biggest goals is to improve my writing so I even get excited about criticism, as long as it is specific. There is a special place in heaven for those who review.**

** Many thanks and much love to all,**

** BT**

Closing Arguments and Verdict

"Don't make me regret agreeing to this," was the last thing that Dr. Nabendu said to Coulson in the hallway, just before she joined Director Fury and Agent Barton in a room that had a great window that showed into the next room over. In the interrogation room, on the other side of the one way mirror, sat Dr. Sumati Nabendu's patient and SHIELD's latest enigma, Natasha Romanoff, quiet and staring off into the middle distance. This was not good. Lately, Natasha had started to become more and more withdrawn, although few would have been able to detect the difference, and it was seriously beginning to concern the doctor.

Dr. Nabendu hadn't gone to work for SHIELD because she wanted an easy career. She had come to them with a list of credentials as long as her arm, and her work was especially focused on the mental and emotional effects of traumatic experiences, exactly the kind of experiences that SHIELD agents seemed to deal with on a near-daily basis. As a result, Dr. Nabendu was rarely without a full plate and had enjoyed an exceptional amount of success with the many of the patients that had come into her office, however great or small their problems had been, but Natasha Romanoff had been something new entirely.

It was soon very apparent that someone had treated the woman's mind like their own personal playground for years, and the results had been disturbing. A less professional way to describe it - but more accurate, in Dr. Nabendu's opinion – was 'creepy.' She had seen Natasha Romanoff on a regular basis, almost daily, for weeks now, and, for a while, the doctor had thought she really might be helping, albeit slowly – painstakingly so. The concept of 'confiding' had been difficult for the young woman to nail down; Agent Barton seemed to be the only person she was willing to trust in the beginning, even if it was not really much more than she trusted everyone else. For whatever the reason the girl trusted him, Dr. Nabendu was glad that she did. His firm backing of the doctor's efforts had a lot to do with the amount of progress that had been made.

In the doctor's opinion, the one thing that would be the most helpful for Natasha Romanoff at this point would be some kind, any kind of productive employment that gave her a chance to use her skills in a positive way. Director Fury, being more concerned with the safety of his organization than he was with the mental health of one person, had been less than receptive to the idea. So, when Coulson had approached her with the intention of putting Natasha, or rather _pushing_ Natasha, into active duty, she was willing to give it a shot.

That didn't mean that Sumati Nabendu wasn't nervous. She was fidgeting uneasily when she approached the window that opened the view into the interrogation room where Natasha sat, but after seeing Agent Barton tense anxiously in response to her own nervousness, she tried to cover her own restless movement with an unnecessary readjustment of the dark blue sari, very similar in color to the SHIELD uniforms, that she wore when she felt in need of a little good luck. Agent Barton had not been given the details about today's interview, but it did not take all of his clandestine skills to figure out that a lot was riding on this interview going well, at least, for a given value of 'well,' and Sumati didn't need any of her various degrees to tell that he was apprehensive about the way things were going.

Dr. Nabendu knew that Agent Barton did care that Natasha did get the support that she needed to get her feet on the ground, but still, he had been severely inconvenienced by his attempt to help Natasha Romanoff. Therefore, it greatly raised him in the doctor's esteem that he never so much as let a sigh of frustration pass his lips or let so much as a whisper of complaint escape from him in either Natasha's - or her – presence and that he was actually serious about helping her instead of just sparing her in a throw-away gesture of mercy and leaving her as the responsibility of others.

When Coulson finally entered the interrogation room, he brought with him a thin manila folder and a steel tray covered in a white cloth, both of which he sat down on the table in front of Natasha, and Natasha's gaze flicked between the tray and the calm agent, both of whom she eyed warily. With absolutely no pretext, Coulson removed the white cotton cloth that had covered the tray to reveal wide assortment of evil-looking tools –syringes and scalpels, needles and pliers, among other equally endearing objects. Natasha's eyes grew wide, but the next instant found her once again mistress of herself, her features carefully schooled into a mask of indifference.

"Now then," he said in his calm and quiet way, "Whether or not you actually remember your earliest years in what you so quaintly refer to as "The Program," you would have, according to our research, have seen these items before, although, if you really have forgotten, I suppose there is no reason for you to recall them."

The young woman sitting in front of him met his gaze. "What is it, exactly, that you want me to tell you?" she asked dispassionately.

"Oh, nothing yet," he said dismissively. "For now, I just want you to listen to a story that I am going to tell. However, to be fair, I have already gotten ahead of myself. This story actually starts on the first day of summer, over two decades ago, when a daughter is born to Anton and Ekaterina Romanoff. It was technically late at night, but as it was the longest day of the year, and in Saint Petersburg in Russia, it is a safe assumption that it was still remarkably bright out at the time of the birth.

"Unfortunately, at this point our story is already moving into the realm of speculation, but, as far as we have been able to tell, the Romanoff's daughter had as happy and unremarkable a childhood as that of the next child. Sadly, the Soviet Union was quite adept at not only making people disappear, but also at erasing their lives from record, and, although the next part of the story takes place after the fall of the Soviet Union, there is quite a bit of evidence in this instance to suggest that these skills were not lost with the communist régime. At this point, the thread of the story is picked up again, this time from a new source. It seems that one night, just before her eleventh birthday, everything changes for this girl, and change comes to the girl in the form of this man."

Here, Coulson opened the folder and removed a picture of a burly man, dark and bearded in a uniform that the doctor had never seen before, but when Coulson placed the picture in front of Natasha, there was instant, obvious recognition. Her hands clinched into fists, and her entire body tensed like a cat with raised hackles. Her face remained neutral, but the look of loathing in her eyes made her feelings clear.

"In the brief few hours of darkness, this man takes a girl from her home, kills her parents, and sets their house on fire, burning it entirely to the ground. The girl is gone. The house is utterly destroyed, and there is nothing left, not even Romanoff's bodies.

"We found this" – Coulson set down a second picture in front of Natasha more carefully – "in the remaining estate of a great aunt. We were allowed to take a copy. It is one of the few enduring records of their existence."

It was a new print of an old photo, new parents with a very small baby, no more than a few weeks old. The father's hair was a familiar bright red curls already beginning to thin, and the proud new mother in the photograph was almost the spitting image of the woman sitting at the table in the interrogation room, except with dark hair that fell straight just past her shoulders.

Natasha gasped and stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the picture, no longer making any effort to cover her reaction with a façade of indifference. She picked up the picture and studied it for a very long time, before placing it in her lap. For the doctor, the meaning behind the movement was clear: Now that you've shown it to me, you can have it back only after you've pried it from my cold, dead fingers. Coulson, for his part, seemed to have developed a convenient momentary blindness until the picture disappeared.

Shortly, Coulson cleared his throat and continued as though there had been no interruption.

"What we know of what follows is mostly rumor, but we do have a single credible source to draw from. 'The Program' was established by a remnant of the Soviet Intelligence, although there is no place for them official government of the time. The idea is simple: instead of waiting to find good assets for their purposes that may or may not come, the assets could be created. They could be chosen young, selected for their talents and potential, trained to precise specifications, and most importantly, they would be taught to never question their orders. It was definitely going to be a challenge, but they had a scientist who promised to deliver results. Out of all of the candidates, the scientist chose the Romanoff girl.

Finally, the last picture came out of the folder, a little old lady in a clean and starched lab coat, smiling with warmth at the camera. If there had ever been a contest for a stereotypical 'grandmother' figure, this smiling woman would have taken home the grand prize, and it was to this final picture that Natasha reacted the most strongly. She pushed back from the table so hard that her chair and the back of her head slammed into the wall behind her.

"This woman, of all the people in your life, is the most responsible for your being here today instead of all the places that you could have been instead. This woman, Dr. Olga Chernakov, from the time you were eleven until the time you were set out into the world, ran your life. She decided when you would eat, when you would go hungry, when you were allowed to sleep, and when you would be awake, and refusal to conform to her exact desires would be… dealt with." All eyes in both rooms flickered to the tray that still sat on the table. "It was not long before she decided what you would think and how you would think."

"Others may have run the Program, pick you out, taken you, but it was she that turned you into a cold, calculating, ruthless killer who did the bidding of shadowy, powerful people for years without so much as a twinge of conscience. You have been the mindless monster for so long, what if there is nothing else left?"

"You want us to believe that the monster is gone, so I want to know who, exactly, you are now," Coulson said, still in a quiet, measured voice, but somehow, his tone was quite menacing.

Natasha's eyes darted around the room as she desperately searched for something, anything to say. Finally, she held her hands out in a gesture that showed that she had no answer, that she didn't know if there was an answer.

Coulson gave her a penetrating look that went on for far too long. "You know what?" he said finally, in a grim voice that rang with disappointment. "This isn't going to work. You're not ready. We'll try again in another month." He slid the pictures back into the folder and placed the folder on the stainless steel tray. Collecting the lot, he turned to leave the interrogation room.

"No!" Natasha shouted, suddenly leaping to her feet.

Coulson paused at the door. Turning back to Natasha with one eyebrow raised, he inquired coldly, "I beg your pardon?"

"I said no," Natasha snapped back defiantly. "Nothing in the next month or the next hundred years is going to change anything! There is nothing that I can do that will force you to trust me, and there is nothing that I could possibly do that would wipe away all of the terrible things that I have done. So, you can either give me a chance to try to make up for some of the bad things that I have done, or you can put a bullet in my brain and let God decide what to do with me."

Again, Coulson regarded her with his cool, passive stare that went on for several minutes too long. For once, Natasha clearly found it infuriating. At last, Coulson placed the tray back do onto the table, removed the firearm from his holster, and placed it on the table in front of her.

"I believe that I will let you decide."

In the observation room, Dr. Nabendu could sense Agent Barton tense up, and turn in her direction, expecting her to do something, anything to stop this, but she wouldn't have stopped the interview at this point for anything.

Natasha glanced between Coulson and the firearm, obviously convinced that the man in front of her had taken leave of his senses. Carefully, she picked up the semi-automatic pistol and examined it meticulously. She released the magazine, and, against all odds, there were indeed bullets. She gave a shake of her head in wonder, and after satisfying herself that the gun was in excellent working condition, she put it back down on the table.

"I think that I would not like to meet my maker with so much red still in my ledger," she stated simply. She stared back at him, matching his inexpressive gaze.

Then, the doctor watched as Coulson turned his head to the one way mirror, and, despite the fact that Dr. Nabendu was certain that Coulson could not see it, Director Fury nodded slightly. Coulson turned back to Natasha, a very subtle, but instantaneous change in his demeanor.

"Very well," Coulson said, in a much friendlier, more conversational tone. "Welcome to SHIELD, Probationary Agent Romanoff. That firearm, by the way, has been issued to you, and you should report to Inventory to sign for the rest of your equipment. I believe that you will find some of the weapons available to our agents very interesting, and I am confident you will come up with some very creative ways to employ some of those weapons. I look forward to seeing that.

"If you feel that you have any needs in combat that are not being met, we encourage our agents to speak to the R&D department. We have some very clever and enthusiastic minds that are always eager for new challenges.

"You will need to spend quite some time with the HR department tomorrow, I'm afraid," Coulson continued. "New hires do require truly awe-inspiring amounts of paperwork, but, unfortunately, without it, paychecks and benefits won't come. I've set up your appointment for 0900 hours. Expect to stay well past lunch, so plan accordingly.

"This badge"- Coulson removed a plastic card the size of a credit card from his inner-jacket pocket - "will give you access to Zone 3 through Zone 8, which will be upgraded when you make full agent to include Zone 1 and Zone 2 as well, however, you are allowed into those Zones at this time when in the company of your supervising agent.

"Your formal orientation is scheduled for this coming Monday, and, after that, you will officially be on active duty. Until that point, I recommend you take the time to rest as we have a very busy schedule planned for the next several months. Might I offer my congratulations?"

Natasha Romanoff was momentarily mystified by the sudden and seemingly inexplicable promotion from the bottom rung of the agency ladder, but, to her credit as a spy who could be ready to adjust to any situation, she rallied magnificently. With the slightest of smiles and the greatest politeness, she said. "Thank you, Agent Coulson. I am looking forward to working for you."

As Coulson nodded to Natasha before leaving the interrogation room, Director Fury broke the silence for the first time. "Agent Barton, your attendance will be required for all parts of her hiring process. Doctor, I would like to thank you for your assistance. Your work with Miss… with Agent Romanoff should proceed as you see fit. Have a good evening." With a nod to Dr. Nabendu, he left the room.

Agent Barton was still watching the newly-born probationary agent as she sat quietly in the interrogation room contemplating recent events. Dr. Nabendu also watched her as she eventually opened the folder with the pictures in it and removed the picture of the cheerful, little grandmother-like woman in the bright white coat. Natasha selected one of the nasty little tools off of the tray that still sat on the edge of the table, and, after a moment of deliberation, with a look of grim determination written on her face, she slowly and purposely ground the sharp end of the tool into the picture, pinning it to the table. Agent Barton glanced at the doctor, waiting for her to say something, but all she could do was smile in satisfaction. He took her apparent contentment as a sign that he too could relax.

Letting out a steady, calm breath, Natasha stood and picked up the gun, and after looking it over for a moment of further examination, she apparently approved it because she hooked it into the waistband of her jeans at her back, picked up the badge and the picture of her family from the table, and joined Agent Barton where he stood waiting for her at the open door.

Soon, Agent Coulson joined Dr. Nabendu in the observation room.

"Agent Coulson, you can be a bit of a bastard, and that was completely reckless," she said, with a shake of her head. "That being said, I am very impressed."

"I couldn't have done so without your help."

* * *

**And now, for a short poem that I just made up:**

Might you wish to pose a criticism or witticism?

Do you have now a question or suggestion?

Would you like to add a notion or promotion?

Is there something that you request or positively detest?

If you care to share, then do it down there!

It is true that, for you, they made a place to review!


	4. Epilogue: The Sentencing

**Dear Darling Readers,**

**I am sorry for being so trying on your patience; I meant to have this final chapter up two weeks ago. Unfortunately, I was deeply distracted by a tragedy that occurred recently, and, once distracted, it takes me a great deal of effort to refocus my attentions. However, focus has returned, and here is the last chapter in this particular story. However, you should expect more stories soon! The next couple of stories are going to be quite a bit more laid back than the first two. As much as I love, action, adventure, and so forth, these earlier stories contained a bit more high drama in them than I'm normally comfortable with, but as these stories are for a movie based on comic books, I felt the increase to be appropriate for the material. Still, I don't want to over-do it and make the characters insufferable, so we're going to lighten up for a bit. (Don't worry though - drama and intrigue are definitely on the books for later.)**

**So, that's about enough rambling from me. Here's the rest of the story. I hope you like it.**

**Again, you have all the love I can give,**

**Ballerina Terminator**

Sentencing

One year later…

Natasha Romanoff had been waiting in Director Fury's office for nearly twenty minutes, and she was beginning to feel antsy. She propped one foot up onto the edge of his desk and shifted a bit, relieving pressure from her sore hip, which had taken the brunt of a particularly well-placed kick less than three days prior.

Her appointment had been for 1300 hours, and she had only learned about the meeting after she had gotten back to base, less than 48 hours before. She had no idea why Fury had called her in. She had been awfully busy as of late. Natasha had started out with the idea that the meeting might be about her last operation in which she had not only accomplished her mission, but as an added bonus, she had also managed to prevent the unplanned demolition of an entire hotel, an act which would have been much appreciated by those attending a convention hosted in the hotel if they had actually been aware of what danger they had been in. The SHIELD team on that mission had decided that it merited quite an evening of celebration. There had been dancing, which, she had to admit, had been fun, although she now suspected to have aggravated the strain in her hip.

The longer she waited in this office, however, the more worried she became. After all, it wasn't exactly common place for Fury to call someone in to give kudos for a job well done, but it was definitely _not _unheard of for him to give personal hell for a screw-up that had caught his attention. She wracked her brain for what it might be that could have her in trouble, but she couldn't definitely put her finger on anything in particular.

"Agent Romanoff, get your boot off my desk!"

Natasha started as Fury strode into the room and pulled her leg down quickly. "Hey, Boss," she said almost brightly, hiding her mortification for having been caught unawares. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, I'm afraid that I was unavoidably detained," he said, sitting at his desk with a sigh of frustration.

"Look, if this is about the thing in Coulson's quarters, with the socks and the glue, I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with that. In fact, I was in Bolivia at the time, so-"

"I happen to already know the identities of those involved in that little escapade, and they have been reprimanded," Fury said darkly. "That is not why you are here."

Natasha's eyebrows knit in confusion.

"You are here because you are being upgraded."

"Upgraded?"

"Yes, it has been a year."

"A year," she repeated, still not following.

"You have completed your year of probation, and you are being upgraded to full agent."

Natasha's eyes widened. "Oh!"

"You are no longer required to have Barton as your probationary supervisor."

"Oh," she responded with considerably less enthusiasm.

"Instead, you will be full partners," he continued. "You will, of course, occasionally receive solo assignments should your specific skill set be required for one, but on the whole your work together has been exemplary, and I see no reason to alter your working conditions."

"Yes, sir," she said, unable to think anything useful to add.

"You need to speak to Melissa in HR about your increase in salary and the upgrade of your benefits package and all that other paperwork stuff."

"Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed, Agent Romanoff."

"Yes, sir." Natasha stood and headed for the door, but just before she walked out, Fury called to her. She turned back.

"Agent Romanoff, that was good work in Rio last week."

Her mouth curved up in a small, satisfied smile. "Thanks, Boss."


End file.
